Between the highest price a customer will pay and the lowest price a builder will accept lies the realm of negotiation. It is a place of unease for most builders, to be gotten through as quickly as possible on the way to their comfort zone, the actual building of the house. But for Joe Pusateri, negotiation is more than a necessary evil. After a career spent studying of the art of the deal, he approaches negotiation as something between a jousting match and a chess game, and he clearly relishes the contest. Addressing the Directions conference on Wednesday, June 4, Pusateri, owner of Elite Homes in Louisville, Ky., shared both his enthusiasm for negotiation and his accumulated wisdom on the subject with a roomful of custom builders eager to get a little of what Pusateri has.
A custom builder for more than 30 years, Pusateri first became serious about negotiation when a cagy client schooled him in the subject—to the tune of $60,000 on a single project. In the years since, he has combined book learning with everyday practice to divine the unwritten rules of the game and sharpen the techniques to play it effectively.
Pusateri began his 90-minute presentation by outlining the basic stages of the negotiating process (establishing criteria, gathering information, reaching for compromise) and 10 basic principles of the art (you should establish your objectives in advance; the other side is under just as much pressure to reach an agreement as you are; concessions come at the end of negotiation, not at the beginning).
Becoming more specific, Pusateri then offered 10 rules for negotiation (don't get angry; start on the least troublesome issue first; convey that you are capable of living without the deal). Mixing often-humorous anecdotes of his successes and failures at the negotiating table with short film clips illustrating effective techniques, Pusateri kept his audience both entertained and busy taking notes. And while he described negotiation as a contest of wills and intellects, he also made it clear that the best outcome is two satisfied participants. "At the end," he said, "always congratulate the other side on what a good job they did." Even if you did quite a bit better.
